Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One (6 page)

Enoch slowly wrapped his arms around his wife and
pulled her close until her head was laid against his chest.  He tried to savor
a moment that certainly
would
not come again for a long while. 
“I will
,
my love,
”
he whispered into
Zacol’s
ear
.

*   *   *   *

Why did I say that?

Sariel
still had his hand outstretched in the direction
Sheyir
had run. 
The branches and leaves still swayed from her passage, but she was gone. 
He slowly curled his fingers inward
and lowered
his arm. 

I just came here to escape.  To regroup.  Didn’t I?

But his words to Sheyir still hung in the air, revealing a deeper motive that he himself wasn’t aware of until the moment it took the form of words.

I’ve come a long way to see you.

Sariel lowered his gaze to the ground beside him while he searched his memory for confirmation or denial of what he’d just spoken. 
Laeningar
had become a place of refuge for him in recent times.  In the
E
ternal
R
ealm, there was a sharp contrast between it and the territory of the Evil One.  Even among the
luminescent terrain of his own territory, the Valley of Healing stood out as a special place.  It had drawn his attention at first sight, but what
succeeded
in capturing his fascination was
the realization that it had all been created by a human woman.  Never before had such a thing occurred.  Humans, as a species, hadn’t yet learned the art of song.  But it was there waiting for them, because it pleased the Holy One to create such things, even ideas, for humans to discover.  And the humans were His most cherished creation.

When Sariel had first seen her, he had known why.  She
had been t
he most beautiful thing he’d ever encountered.  Her tiny frame—half the size of Sariel’s—
appeared as an intricate tapestry of sparkling,
multi-colored
threads
,
shifting from one family of hues to another with each emotion
. 
Over the years, he watched her grow from a child into a woman.  She always had songs in her heart, even before she could speak.  And when she discovered them, and gave them voice, she sang as though she were a gifted Shaper who had been taught the deepest knowledge of Songs from the Holy One.  Without knowing what she was doing, she created healing, and established peace.  But Sariel knew what she was doing.  He could see it.  He could see the effect of her melodies, how they drifted to the ground and took root.  In this place where he now stood, he could still hear the lingering songs from years past, blending with the harmonies that she had sung only days before.  In his spirit, Sariel could feel the way her songs calmed the storms of his troubled mind.

I didn’t come here to escape
the demons.  I didn’t even come to think about my next course of action.  It was instinct.  I didn’t want to die because there’s still something worth living for.

And i
t wasn’t the Valley of Healing that
still held worth in his eyes;
it was the one who had created it, the one who sang it into existence
.

I love her,
he admitted to himself.

I’ve always loved her.

But could he be with
Sheyir
?  Could he live in her world, as
a human
?  Was he ready to do what was forbidden?  Was he ready to risk ruining what was perfect in his mind?  Would she love him in return?  Or would this last, beautiful idea die like everything else in his life?

The
stream
flow
ing
from
Laeningar
wound through
wide
grasslands and dense forests. 
Mist rose from the earth, clinging heavily to the thick vegetation where the air was still. 
In other places, w
here a slight breeze had cleared away the moisture, bright sunlight
came down in great, silver columns, warming the earth. 
Surrounded by the buzzing of insects and a seemingly infinite variety of chirps and whistles from brightly-colored birds,
Sariel waded through the shallows
of the stream
. 
He was in no hurry
.  Once he’d come to understand his true motivation for
entering the
T
emporal
R
ealm
,
and had made peace with it, he found himself
thoroughly enjoying
his new home.  T
he feel of the cool water between his toes
.  The
alternating stone and sand terrain
beneath his feet
. 
The way e
ach step brought swirling plumes of silt off the bottom
,
to be swept downstream by the mild current.

The
T
emporal
R
ealm
shared many similarities with the
E
ternal
, though the differences were fascinating.  Colors were duller, but shapes seemed more defined.  Sounds didn’t linger into eternity, but were more crisp and vibrant.  Sariel inhaled the sweet fragrance of the flowers that bloomed everywhere, smiling at the
lack of subtlety.  Existence, it seemed, was more real in this place
; p
erhaps intensified by the loss of immortality.

And to think, all of creation was once a combination of both
attributes
.

When his thoughts returned to Sheyir, he shook his head at his own stupidity. 
He hadn’t ever planned on revealing himself to her in bodily form, but now that he had, he regretted the way it
happened
.
T
he form he’d maintained
during his recent age as a
soldier
was nothing like any person or animal she would ever
have
come in contact with.  In the blindness of
the moment, he came into her realm and took on the nearest temporal equivalent to an
Iryllur
. 
Only when he saw the terror
on
her face did he realize
his mistake. 
And then she ran.

So, what do I do now?  She
seemed
less afraid
after I
s
haped
into a human
, but she still left.

Sariel thought about her tribe and what he’d observed over the years.
  Even though he had watched her almost exclusively, he had
unconsciously gathered other information along the way, including learning her language.

As he went back through his memory, he saw
something hidden beneath her reaction
to his human form
, something he’d missed until just this moment
.

A
hint of intrigue mingled with her uncertainty
?

Among
the
Chatsiyram
,
women were responsible for gathering and preparing food, tending to the men, and performing nearly every physical task required to maintain the village, with the exception of building
shelters
. 
They weren’t physically abused, but they were ignored and
disproportionately
burdened.  When the work for the day was finished, most of the women tended to gather together to share stories, eat, and talk about other women.  Sometimes, when they talked about each other’s husbands, the conversation turned ugly
.  The
women
could be just as unfriendly as the men of the tribe. 
This was
w
hy
Sheyir
spent most of her free time alone.

And then, after years o
f
isolating yourself from women
—i
gnored by men
; n
ever pursued
or
even engaged in conversation
—a
man tells you that he’s come a long way to see you.
  Yes.  She’s intrigued.  She must be!

Seeing now the mixture of emotions in her reaction, a
strategy
began to form in Sariel’s mind
—one
that occupied his thoughts for
the remainder of his journey.

Rounding a bend, the stream widened into a shallow pool
with a sandy
bottom
. 
Several
small children waded in the water.  Some were splashing; others were poking sticks into the sand an
d watching the sil
t billow toward the surface.

“Hello, children.”

The small, dark faces looked up.  The girls stood motionless with curiosity.  The boys instantly smiled and began to make their way over.

Sariel kept moving slowly forward.  “Are you playing a game?”

“Why do you look strange?” one of the boys asked, without a hint of embarrassment.

Sariel smiled. 
Even wearing a human form, h
is
pale features still marked him as a stranger. 
“Everyone in my tribe looks like me.  But my tribe is very far away.”

“You’re tall,” one boy observed.

Another boy came close and touched Sariel’s arm, as if checking to see that he was real.

“Can I play your game too?” he asked
the children
.

“No,”
an older
girl answered quickly
.

“Yes, you can play with us,” a
boy corrected.

“Thank you.  And what are you playing?”

The girl answered again.  “The boys are looking for fish.”

“And you are splashing?” Sariel asked.

“No,” the girl corrected.  “
We are trying to catch the fish when they find one.
”

“
O
h, I see
,
”
Sariel replied.

One of the boys
put a stick onto
Sariel
’s hand
and pushed his fingers closed.

“No, he doesn’t want to look for fish,” the girl corrected.

Sariel looked
down
at the boy whose eyes
seemed a bit larger than before.
 
“
What if I was the fish?
”
he said, suddenly sitting down in the water.

All the children laughed, even the oldest girl.

Sariel laughed
too
, knowing he must look ridiculous to them.  He
could see the excitement in their faces and knew that none of them had ever
played
with an adult.  Adults didn’t play
with children in the
Chatsiyr
tribe
and t
he
little ones learned quickly t
o
ke
e
p to themselves
if they wanted to
have any fun
.

At the most, they
might
have a caretaker watching them.

As soon as the thought came to him, Sariel began to
scan the nearby trees.  It took only a moment to locate a terror-stricken
female
face, peering at him through the leaves.  And then
the face
was gone.

Sariel stood up.  “Do your parents live nearby?”

The oldest girl nodded.

“Can you take me to see them?”

The boy who had put the stick in Sariel’s hand now grabbed two of his fingers and began to pull him toward the shore.  He looked up at Sariel
and squinted in bright sunlight reflecting from the water.
  “Can we play after
you
talk to them?”

Sariel smiled again.  “I would like that very much
.
”
 
Though I doubt I’ll get the opportunity.

The children led him away from the stream and into the trees, seeming to follow a memorized path, though none of the vegetation was worn a
way or gave any indication of regular travel.  Minutes later, the grass gave way to
bare soil
and a
village
appeared almost out of nothing.  Several large grass huts were roughly arranged between the trees, around what appeared to be a central meeting area.  The huts had thatch roofs, but no walls,
and were
support
ed
by
thick
wooden
poles
set into the ground.  A ring of stones lay at the center of the meeting area
, seating for the men of the tribe during the evening meal.